RAISED BED IRRIGATION DONE

So the first thing I did was move the hose bib to a new location. It's now along the side of the fence, so that it's in the middle of the garden beds instead of at one end (I think I owe that one to one of you who suggested that in a comment).

I utilized this item from Gardener's Supply that is called the Snip-n-Drip Soaker Hose System.  The basic kit comes with 25 feet of garden hose and 50 feet of the various connectors.  You just measure what you need, snip the hose with scissors and put a connector on one end...

...and then put the other half on the other end and screw them together.  It's really about as easy as you could want.  I had enough connectors and hoses to hook up three 4x4 beds and one 4x8 bed.  Should be enough for this first growing season.  After hooking it all up there was only one thing left to do, turn on the water and see what happens.

I turned on the water faucet at the house and then at the garden hose bib and voila, water came bubbling out of the soaker hose just like it's supposed to.  There wasn't a single leak in any of the connections and all is good!  We even had great water pressure, in fact a little too much pressure in the first raised bed, closest to the faucet.

I turned it off before too much came out because I didn't really want to waste water and  it was about to rain anyway.  Now I just need to get some hooks to keep the soaker hose in position on the surface, and then clamp the green sections to the sides of the beds.  I did them so they run down and along the ground and then back up to the next bed.  That will make it easier to walk between the beds.  Now comes the next quandary, figuring out how to  arrange them.

I am not going to do exact square foot gardening, but I do need to figure out the best way to lay the hose.  I actually thought about this shape and planting in and around it.  The spiral above I thought about using in the herb bed.  I'm putting the tomatoes in the 4x8 bed so I think that will run straight down the middle.  Hey, I guess all that matters is that we have water.  This will all be hooked up to an automatic timer so we'll see how it goes.  Now if it will just stop freezing one a week, we can get some veggies in the ground.

DIY VANILLA EXTRACT

DIY Vanilla extract

2nd Man is out of town, it's cold and rainy outside, so I figured it was a good time to start a new batch of vanilla extract.  We do this about twice a year and yes, we do use that much vanilla in baking/cooking (we also give some away).

For those new to the blog, CLICK HERE for the original 'how to' post.

Since we let it go for about six months, this batch will be ready in September, just in time for the Fall cooking season.

Homemade vanilla extract process

Update on the weekend tomorrow, hope yours was good.  We turned rainy and cold and will be that way for a few days.

Time for inside projects!

FARMS NEED TREES, VINTAGE POSTER SUNDAY

Farms Need Trees, vintage poster image, courtesy of US National Archive

Here is a neat  poster...Plains Farms Need Trees.  This was part of the Prairie States Forestry Project that was started by President Roosevelt in 1935 to help fight against the severe erosion that occurred during the period of the great  Dust Bowl.  For those around the world unfamiliar with this period of US history, CLICK HERE for the wiki entry.

Over 200 million tree seedlings were planted during this time.  I love the caption at the bottom of the post that says trees "...contribute to human comfort and happiness".  Truer words were never spoken.  It actually reminds us that there are a few open spaces along fence lines at the farm where we need to plant a few more trees.  Trees are always a good thing. 

More later this afternoon, we're rainy and cold again.  Sigh.  

OFF TO WORK ON AN IRRIGATION PLAN

At the farm today working on connecting a drip irrigation system like this to some of the raised beds so we can get growing.  Once the freezes are over of course as another one is forecast for next week.

How ironic, it looks like rain today too!  If only we could count on regular rain and not worry about irrigation, ha. 

Hope you are having a good start to the weekend!  Thanks for yesterday's advice on the unused raised beds.

UNUSED RAISED BEDS QUESTION

As many of you know, we recently got the beds finally all filled with soil.  The plan is to not plant in them all now but we wanted to go ahead and have them filled up and ready before it gets hot (hard work in the heat) and before we put the mulch in (so we don't trample it all down).

4x4 Raised bed with soil

So my question is for those of you that have done raised beds before.  How do I care for the soil in the 'unplanted' beds?  I would like to put weed cloth on top, securing it in some way, to prevent weeds but will that 'cook' the soil?  Does unused soil need light?  Cardboard on top with some bricks to weight it down?  Should I water it on occasion (if there is no rain of course)?  Keep it stirred up?  Add something to it periodically?  Worms?

I just want to keep it healthy until it's time to plant some veggies, perhaps mid-summer melons, or some Fall crops.

Thoughts?  Thank you in advance!

I'll also reply to all your comments later this weekend.  It's just been a crazy busy week so far, but they are all read and appreciated and I will reply!

FELINE FRIDAY

Happy kitten sleeping on her back

This is 2nd Family's new kitten "Clover", doing her new favorite thing.  They said if you hold her in your lap on her back and rub her tummy, she just sort of stretches out, goes limp, and falls to sleep!  Must be nice!

Ah, the life of a kitten in a loving home.  It's rough but someone has to do it.

Hope your Friday is just like Clover's...

More later this afternoon, including a gardening question.

FLOWERS AND A BIRDBATH, INSPIRATION THURSDAY

Flowers in a garden, photo image courtesy of yardshare

After the last few days of ice and freezing cold, I'm ready for color.  So I thought I'd find a photo of someone else's flowers that inspire us. These flowers are just so colorful and pretty and we love the blue birdbath peeking out from in the middle of it all.  We can only hope to have some flowers like this someday.

Hope you are having a good week wherever you are and if you are in the states where it's cold, hope you too have warmth and some Spring flowers and color sooner rather than later.

Be inspired!

FROZEN THE SEQUEL

Earlier today, I posted a bunch of photos from yesterday's 'ice event'.  These are our two favorite photos that 2nd Family's "S" took for us.  Be sure and enlarge them to see the detail.

Cardinal in tree

The Cardinal in the icy tree above is just beautiful, and looks like something you'd see on a greeting card.  In fact, 2nd Man and I are thinking that we just might use this as this as our Christmas card later this year.

And then below, this one just entrances me.  This is the green grass driveway that goes to our house (that's the farmhouse way down at the end) that I was just mowing 3 days ago.  It is now surrounded by a fantasy land of frozen, icy trees.  It doesn't even look real, almost like something from a movie set. 

Frozen winter wonderland

FROZEN

Stand by for a graphics intensive post, sorry I just couldn't resist posting them.  2nd Family's daughter "S" took these pictures to share with us what the farm looked like during this ice storm.  They are strangely beautiful...

Icicles on a bird feeder

Ice on hardware cloth

Frozen Tree

Ice on fence

Ice on tree

Beautiful ice

Frozen trees and green grass, so odd

Frozen fountain

Barnabas the party tree in his Winter finest

Love these because they are all so eerily pretty.  Not to mention, I think "S" has a pretty good eye for photography.  There are two more I will post later this afternoon that are our favorites.

AND HERE WE GO YET AGAIN

Houston Winter Storm Warning, graphic courtesy of KHOU.com

This is the forecast for us (image is from last night's newscast so it's this morning).  It's been really bad further up North and now it's unexpectedly come this way.  Kind of crazy to think that Saturday and Sunday were hot and humid and I even got sunburned while dealing with the soil.

In the span of about 2 hours on Sunday afternoon, the temperature dropped some 50 degrees!  This is the sky Monday afternoon at the farm just before the sleet started (courtesy of 2nd Family).  We even had THUNDERSLEET!

Winter sky at the farm

So many people in our area have already planted gardens and flowers and other plants since we had warm Spring temps and now we are all dipping into the 20's and being covered with ice.  Kind of glad I don't have everything in the ground yet.  The weather people said that this was one of the only times in recent memory that we've had this many icy weather cold snaps in one Winter season.  All bridges and roads are being de-iced around town now.

Of course they also added that of the seven coldest Winters we've had in the past, six of them were followed by Texas being hit with Tropical Storms and/or Hurricanes the following Summer.  This is now another one of the coldest Winters we've had and is added to the list...so what happens this Summer?

Stay warm and safe wherever you are!

SOIL IS IN THE RAISED BEDS

It was a long day on Saturday.  2nd Man has a cold so he stayed in town but we still had the soil delivery scheduled.  The guy came about 10am.

Before the delivery, the cart was standing by and ready to go.  The trees are still brown and 'Wintry', but the grass is quickly greening up.

After the delivery.  This was 5 cubic yards of soil.  It's funny, in the picture looking back now, it doesn't seem so big.  Trust me though, when I was about halfway through the pile, I wasn't sure if I had the willpower to finish.

This was it after I was done.  That's just a scattering of soil on the ground. I could have scraped up some of it, but to be perfectly honest, by that time, I was DONE, ha.  Of course, I told 2nd Family they could come take whatever they needed for pots and containers.

I learned my lesson with the new cart, it worked great but the first couple of loads, I filled it up to heaping...it was so heavy I could barely move it!  So I started shoveling half loads.  That worked much better.

This is the reason I made sure the width between the beds was 36"...so that I would always be able to get carts and wheelbarrows between them.  Some raised bed articles I read when I was designing the area said that 24" is fine.  I can assure you though, if I had done that, this job would have been MUCH more difficult.  I would wheel the cart to a raised bed and then tip it over into it.  Toward the end, I used the shovel to just top off each bed.  I didn't fill them to the top on purpose so that I could add compost and other things to mix into the soil later on in the process.

Raised beds filled with soil

So now they are all filled.  We won't be planting in all of them though this first season.  It's just that we figured it would be easier to load all that dirt in before the mulch was down so we didn't spill it all over everything and then smash down the mulch with the weight of the cart back and forth.  But this is it, they are all full now, I even topped off the existing beds with fresh soil...now comes the last part of the irrigation to several of the beds we're going to plant in first.

On Saturday, it was about 80 degrees while doing this...now as this posts, it is 29 degrees and they are forecasting sleet tonight!  Crazy weather this year.  Still not quite the right time to plant veggies but soon, very soon!

TINY YARD FLOWERS CALLED BLUETS

Tiny yard flowers known as Bluets

I'm not sure what these are called These are Bluets, thanks to a commenter below.  I noticed yesterday that parts of the yard are covered in them.  They are tiny and ever so delicate...this is a super zoomed in view.

I love seeing the first signs of color...Hopefully, this means Spring should be just around the corner.  Although right now, we've gone from 75 degrees and sunny, to about 50 degrees and raining, so who knows this season!

TURN YOUR SILVER INTO BULLETS, VINTAGE POSTER SUNDAY

Turn Silver into bullets, vintage poster courtesy of US National Archives

Now this poster is really interesting.  This one is from WWI actually, circa 1915.  It's kind of crazy to imagine this today with the price of silver as it is.  Here, they urged people to bring in their silver coins, which at this time were of course actually 90% silver and were then given Scrip Vouchers.

Today we put silver up and save it on it's own for potential future increases in value.  Not sure how many would do this now, ha.

LONG DAY

Got the soil today.  

2nd Man is sick as a dog and he had to stay home.

So I loaded 5 cubic yards of soil, one shovelful at a time into the cart, and then into the eight raised beds I built (pics coming later) and I topped off the existing beds as well.  I even got a bit of time on the Zen Machine.

All in all, a good, but very long and tiring day.

Hope you are having a great weekend!

NEW GARDEN HELPER

With the upcoming delivery of soil today and mulch (possibly next week, depending on weather) for the garden, we needed a new wheelbarrow of some sort.  I have the awesome trailer for the Zen Machine that I got last year but A) it's more for hauling and pulling heavy loads, B) you can't use it stand alone, and most importantly, C) it won't fit through the garden gate.

So I've been looking for something that would be just right and I think I found something that will work.  It's this:

Rubbermaid Garden Cart

I got it at Home Depot last weekend for a great deal; it was on sale, plus I had a coupon for 15% off any single item!  Now, they do sell it at Amazon of course, for more than I paid, but if you are so inclined, or what to read more about it, the link is here: Rubbermaid Big Wheel Dump Truck

Rubbermaid Big Wheel Farm Cart

And look!  It fits right through the gate!  This is very important, because I'll be hauling in the soil for the new beds and then shortly thereafter, a huge load of mulch to put down around the beds.  There is only one easy way to get it inside the garden and that's with something like this.  It holds 7.5 cu feet, has a 300 lb weight capacity, and best of all, for our 'thorny environment', it has flat free tires that won't puncture.

Let the hauling begin!

And that will begin today, as you read this I am at the farm awaiting a delivery of 5 cubic yards of soil for the raised beds.  It will be put to good use.

More later today!

FELINE FRIDAY

Snooze buttons on cats?

Having cats, it didn't take us long to notice that when the alarm clock goes off in the morning, there they are...looking at you.  Then we hit snooze on the alarm clock.  The alarm goes quiet, but they don't.  The alarm goes off and they are still sitting there.  Staring.  Meowing.  Alarm clock snooze again.  More meowing.  Then they follow you around, looking up, pleading...and then we relent and give in.  Breakfast is served your majesty...

More later today!

HOW MUCH MULCH

In lieu of today's "Inspiration Thursday", I have a quick question for our gardening friends so I can place an order tomorrow...

Raised beds

Soil is being delivered soon (yay) so that we can fill up the new raised beds I recently built.  We figured it was easier to do that before the mulch is in and I have to push loads of dirt through the garden and possibly spilling it into the nice clean (for now anyway, ha) new mulch.

But that brings me to the question:

I’m trying to determine how much mulch to order.  I know how many square feet I will need of course, but to get the cubic yard amount to have it delivered, I need to decide on a depth.  Now, you all know I have the landscapers weed block fabric down, and it’s a fenced in area full of raised beds.  I've read in various places that anywhere between 1 and 4 inches is average.

4" seemed WAY too deep, so I originally calculated 3”.  But looking at the raised beds picture, that seems kind of deep to me when I realize the beds are 12 inches high.  That’s a quarter of the way up the sides of each bed.

1" seems too shallow to me on the flip side, so in the end, I am leaning toward thinking maybe about 2” deep would be good?

For those that have put mulch in a similar area, how deep would you recommend?  I realize that after a season or two, I’ll be adding/refreshing/etc, but I just wonder how much is enough vs being too much and/or wasteful?

Thank you in advance!

WONDERFUL THRIFT STORE FIND

I stopped, on a whim, into one of the thrift stores I go to frequently and found this.  It's an awesome counted cross stitch (thanks Ellen in Oregon!) that is obviously old and has been around for awhile.

It's very detailed and has lovely flowers and leaves stitched all over it.  The pink roses drew me to it because I knew it would go great in the guest room at the farm.

Then it has the sweetest phrase on it: "To love and be loved is the greatest joy on earth".  A very nice sentiment for everyone.

Here it is in all its beauty (IMHO, ha).

The surprising thing is it is pretty large.  About 16x20.  Oh sure, there are some tiny stains on it, and it's faded a bit with age, but then I got to thinking about who might have made it.  Someone's Mother or Grandmother or heck, Great Grandmother?  Maybe as a wedding gift, or an anniversary gift or a birthday gift?  Someone obviously made it with love, framed it with love and gave it with love.  But somehow, it's now ended up in a thrift store, to be sold off or sent to the dumpster.  I just couldn't let that happen. 

I took it out there this weekend and hung it up.  It fit the flower theme in the guest room perfectly!  So it will be ours from now on.  Perhaps someday it will again end up in a thrift store and maybe the cycle with be repeated.

Everything old is new again!

RANDOM FAVORITE MEAL PICTURE

Here is just a quick picture of one of my favorite meals.  It's simple and the flavors just go together so well.  Not to mention it's kind of a looker!

Pork loin, peas and roasted sweet potatoes

 It's a roasted pork loin that we serve with butter cooked peas and mashed sweet potatoes with garlic.  It's so good and one of my absolute faves.

Oh and a glass (or two) of wine is always a good accompaniment.

Herbs de Provence roasted pork loin

This is the pork loin.

We cover it with Herbs de Provence and then roast it in the oven.  We make sure we use the blend that contains lavender as some blends don't have it and it makes such a nice flavor with the pork.  Yum.  Now I'm hungry.